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Dr. Juan R. Cspedes, Ph.D. Canada Questions

International Baccalaureate History

1. Compare the rebellions in Upper Canada and Lower Canada in the 1830s. To what extent were they separate but inter-related events? The Rebellions of 1837 were revolts against British rule in the North American colonies of Upper Canada (Ontario) and Lower Canada (Quebec) in response to frustrations in political reform and ethnic conflict. Political unrest developed in both Upper and Lower Canada soon after the War of 1812. Some of the causes were similar, rooted in the governing structure imposed by the 1791 constitution, while other causes developed from each colonys particular character. In both colonies, effective government was in the hands of the lieutenant governor and an oligarchy that dominated the legislative and executive councils. In Upper Canada this ruling elite was known as the Family Compact; in Lower Canada it was called the Chteau Clique. In Upper Canada the members of the Family Compact tended to emulate the British landed gentry; by contrast, in Lower Canada the members of the Chteau Clique were mostly merchants, bankers, or those engaged in the shipping trade. The members of these colonial oligarchies shared religious and cultural affinities, intermarried, provided each other political support, and had similar social, economic, and political aims. In Upper Canada the Family Compact used its political power to attempt to create a class-ordered society on the British model. In Lower Canada the Chteau Clique wanted to use the tax receipts collected by the legislature to improve the colonys communications infrastructure, thereby augmenting the Cliques commercial opportunities. In both colonies only the elected legislative assembly could raise taxes, while the appointed councils advised the governor on how to spend those revenues. The rebel leaders, Robert Nelson and Louis J. Papineau in Lower Canada and William Lyon Mackenzie in Upper Canada, attempted to win independence for their colonies from Britain. However, both revolts were easily defeated. In Lower Canada the rebellion was in large part an expression of a resurgent French Canadian nationalism. The Lower Canada rebellion pressed for a French Canadian nation. The revolt in Lower Canada erupted first, precipitated by a government move to arrest Papineau and other leading members of the Parti Patriote. The rebellion was precipitated by the economic and social tensions of the 1830s, which included poor harvests, a decline in living standard, gradual impoverishment and ethnic conflict. But the underlying cause was the conflict between the French Canadian majority, which demanded that all power be centralized in the popularly elected Assembly, which it controlled, and the British minority, which was no less determined to resist French Canadian domination. . The French-speaking and Roman Catholic majority, represented in the assembly by the Parti Canadien (later called the Parti Patriote) and dominant in the legislature, grew convinced that the English-speaking, Protestant Chteau Clique aimed to destroy their way of life. The revolt had widespread support among the French Canadian population and Papineau and his lieutenants earned a lasting place in the hearts of French Canadian nationalists. The Lower-Canada rebellion probably inspired the much shorter rebellion in Upper Canada. In Upper Canada, insurrections resulted from, among other things, dissatisfaction with the Family Compact. The main grievance against the Family Compact was that it was using the tax revenues of the colony to strengthen its own position and enrich the pocketbooks of its members. The farmers in Upper Canada objected to huge areas of valuable farmland

being set aside for the government and the Church of England. What was more, members of the Family Compact had been able to buy large chunks of land very cheaply. There was also profound disagreement in Upper Canada as to which Protestant denominations should run the colonys schools. Few historians see any necessary connection between the 2 outbreaks, though without the Lower Canadian rebellion the Upper Canadian revolt would probably not have taken place. 2. What kind of a federal system did the Fathers of the Confederation create at the conferences of the 1860s? Why did it evolve into a federal rather than a legislative union? Canadian Confederation was the process by which the federal Dominion of Canada was formed beginning July 1, 1867 from the provinces, colonies and territories of British North America. The Fathers of Confederation were the architects of the plan that resulted in the proposal that would bring the individual British American colonies together under a Federalist system. There were three main conferences which were held and to be included as a Father of Confederation, it means to have been in attendance during the debates during one of the conferences. These conferences were: a) The Charlottetown Conference 1864, b) The Quebec Conference - 1864 and c) The London Conference - 1866. The Fathers of Confederation for the most part were leading politicians from the British Colonies interested in forming a Federal Union or a Confederation. Serious discussion of a union of all, Prince Edward Island. At the last minute, delegates from the province of Canada joined them. The Canadian decision to attend resulted from a political crisis over representation in Canadas assembly. Canada Wests Reform Party, led by journalist George Brown, objected to Canada Wests having no more legislative seats than Canada East had. Canada West had grown much larger th the British North American colonies began in 1864 with a proposal to unite the three Maritime colonies of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island. Delegates from the legislatures of the three colonies agreed to discuss union at Charlottetown an Canada East, and the Grits demanded representation by population. Canada East, fearing the power of an Englishspeaking majority, refused to accept this. Thwarted, Brown proposed federalism: Canada East and West would become separate provinces, either in a loose union between them or in a federation of all of British North America. In June 1864 Browns Grits joined the Tories, led by Macdonald, and the Bleus, led by Cartier, in a three-way coalition pledged to explore those options. The Charlottetown meeting in September gave the coalition the chance to propose a British North American union to the Maritime colonies. The Qubec Conference proposed a centralized federation, with most powers granted to a central government responsible to a parliament. However, there would be provincial governments with specified powers over property, language, education, religion, and generally all matters of local concern. Special protection for religious and linguistic minorities reassured the French Canadian leaders in Canada East. The status of the monarch of Britain as the head of state and the ceremonial status of the governor-general were preserved unchanged. 3. Compare the Canadian and the American systems of government. How were regional, state, or provincial interests protected in the two federal systems? Canada and the United States are both democracies. They are also both federal states.

But there are important differences in the way Canadians and Americans govern themselves. A fundamental difference between the Canadian and American constitutions is that Canada is a constitutional monarchy and the United States is a republic. Canada has a parliamentarycabinet government, while the US has presidential-congressional. In the United States, the head of state and the head of the government are both the President. In Canada, the Queen, ordinarily represented by the Governor General, is the head of state, and the Prime Minister is the head of the Government. In Canada, the head of state can, in exceptional circumstances, protect Parliament and the people against a Prime Minister and Ministers who may forget that minister means servant, and may try to make themselves masters. The American presidential-congressional government is based on a separation of powers. Neither the President nor any of the members of his or her Cabinet can be a member of either House of Congress. The President nor any member of the Cabinet can appear in Congress to introduce a bill, defend it, answer questions, or rebut attacks on policies. No member of either House can be President or a member of the Cabinet. On the other hand, in Canada, parliamentary-cabinet government is based on a concentration of powers. The Prime Minister and every other Minister must by custom (though not by law) be a member of one House or the other, or get a seat in one House or the other within a short time of appointment. All government bills must be introduced by a Minister or someone speaking on his or her behalf, and Ministers must appear in Parliament to defend government bills, answer daily questions on government actions or policies, and rebut attacks on such actions or policies. Another difference between American and Canadian government is that tradition and custom plays a large part in the Canadian constitution while the American constitution is inflexible. For example, the President of the United States is included in the written constitution: his or her qualifications for the position, the method of election, the method of removal all the essential powers of office, in black and white, unchangeable except by formal constitutional amendment. However, the Canadian Prime Minister did not appear in the written constitution until 1982. The Constitution Act of that year empowered the Prime Minister to call a constitutional conference within one year. A similarity between the American and Canadian governments is that they are both highly centralized. The Canadians realized the problems America had with state powers in the civil war and decided to avoid that by making all of the provinces under one central parliament. In Canada, provincial legislatures are limited to the powers explicitly given to them by the written constitution. So no provincial legislature can take over powers belonging to the Parliament of Canada. Also, Parliament cannot take over any power of a provincial legislature. By virtue of the Constitution Act, 1867, everything not mentioned as belonging to the provincial legislatures comes under the national Parliament. Although Parliament cannot transfer any of its powers to a provincial legislature, nor a provincial legislature any of its powers to Parliament, Parliament can delegate the administration of a federal Act to provincial agencies and a provincial legislature can delegate the administration of a provincial Act to a federal agency. This administrative delegation is an important aspect of the flexibility of the Canadian constitution. 4. How did Canada and the United States differ in their perceptions of, attitudes toward, and participation in the international affairs of the 20th century? In the twentieth century, strong attachment to the British Empire and

Commonwealth in English Canada led to major participation in British military efforts in the Second Boer War, the First World War, and the Second World War. Since then, Canada has been an advocate for multilateralism, making efforts to resolve global issues in collaboration with other nations. Canada was a founding member of the United Nations in 1945 and of NATO in 1949. During the Cold War, Canada was a major contributor to UN forces in the Korean War and founded the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) in cooperation with the United States to defend against aerial attacks from the Soviet Union. Although Canada had governed its own domestic affairs since the 1840s, it had no independent foreign policy when World War I began in August 1914. Britains declaration of war on Germany meant that the entire empire, including Canada, was at war. The strength of the imperial tie was demonstrated in Canadas ready response. Canada had entered the war as part of the British Empire, but the huge commitment and terrible losses strengthened its sense of nationhood. Canada demanded on acting as a sovereign power in treaty negotiations after the war and in the new international body, the League of Nations. In 1926 the British government acknowledged the equality of the dominions with Britain itself, and in 1931 the British Statute of Westminster confirmed that Canada was a sovereign state. When World War II broke out between the Allied powers and the Axis powers, led by Germany, Canada entered the war grudgingly. The Kings government insisted that Canada control its own war effort and that there would be no conscription. However, a Canadian all-volunteer army went to Britain, and with the tide of Axis victories in 1940, the Canadian commitment grew. The Canadian navy joined in the battle to defend Atlantic convoys against submarine attack. Canadian pilots and aircrews defended Britain and joined in a bomber offensive against the parts of Europe occupied by the Axis. Meanwhile, in 1940 and 1941, Canadian-American agreements on the defense of North America and the financing of the war effort marked the end of Canadas policy of relying on the British alliance to avoid American influence. Canada played a middle power, and an occasionally important, role in the Cold War. Throughout the US/Soviet rivalry, Canada was normally on the side of the United States and the West. However, opposition to the Vietnam War and Canada's relationship with China and Cuba, along with the Prime Ministership of Pierre Trudeau often had Canada at odds with its western neighbors. Despite its reluctance to directly involve itself in continental European affairs, the United States provided substantial loans to the Allies, but only entered World War I after attacks by German U-boats substantially interfered with U.S. shipping. The United States benefited from its expanded visibility and role in international commerce but did not sign the treaty or participate in the League of Nations, which was created at the conference. U.S. domestic politics turned against idealist, international policies and the country returned to a more isolationist stance. In WWII, the United States made significant loans to the Allies, and following the depression, its domestic industries boomed to produce war materials. The United States entered World War II in 1941, again on the Allied side, following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the subsequent declaration of war against the U.S. by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. After the war and devastation of its European and Asian rivals, the United States completed its transition from regional to global power. The United States was a major player in the establishment of the United Nations and became one of five permanent members of the Security Council, which holds greater power than the General Assembly.

From about 1947 until 1991, U.S. foreign policy was dominated by the Cold War, and characterized by its significant international military presence and greater diplomatic involvement. Seeking an alternative to the isolationist policies pursued after World War I, the United States defined a new policy called containment to oppose the spread of communism. The Cold War was characterized by a lack of global wars but a persistence of regional wars, often fought between client states and proxies of the United States and Soviet Union. During the Cold War, U.S. foreign policy objectives seeking to limit Soviet influence, involved the United States and its allies in the Korean War, the overthrow of the democratically elected Iranian government, the Vietnam War, the Six Day War and Yom Kippur War in the Middle East, and later, the policy of aiding anti-Soviet Mujahideen forces in Afghanistan. Diplomatic initiatives included the establishment of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the opening of People's Republic of China and Detente. 5. What economic policies were attempted in Canada in the 20th century, were they conventional or unorthodox, successful or failures? In the 20th century, many economic policies were attempted in Canada. This can be seen in the mid-twentieth century when Canada signed the Automotive Products Trade Agreement in 1965 which opened its borders to trade in the auto manufacturing industry in order to increase its supply in that area. In the 1970s, concerns rose over Canadas energy self-sufficiency and foreign ownership in the manufacturing sectors that prompted Pierre Trudeau's Liberal government to set up the National Energy Program (NEP) and Foreign Investment Review Agency (FIRA). In the 1980s, Brian Mulroney's Progressive Conservatives abolished the NEP and changed the name of FIRA to Investment Canada to encourage foreign investment. Furthermore, The Canada-United States Free Trade Agreement (FTA) of 1988 eliminated tariffs between the two countries, while North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) expanded the free trade zone to include Mexico in the 1990s. In the mid-1990s, the Liberal government under Jean Chrtien began posting annual budgetary surpluses and began steadily paying down the national debt. Since 2001, Canada has avoided economic recession, and have maintained the best overall economic performance in the G8. The global financial crisis hit Canada with a recession and could boost the country's unemployment rate to 10%. Despite the global recession Canadas labor market is in need of hundreds of thousands of foreign workers, according to the Canadian Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism. 6. How did Canadian policy-makers view the Cold War? Were there any significant differences in their perceptions of the East-West struggle? Canada was considered a middle power during the Cold War. Throughout the US and Soviet rivalry, Canada was mostly on the side of the United States and the West. Canada was in the middle of the United States and U.S.S.R thus, any attacks coming to the U.S would be made through Canada . Canada lined up with its allies in opposition to the Soviet Union from its inception in 1917, supplying troops to fight a counter-revolution. Canada was a founding member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. In addition, Canada played a middle power role in international affairs, and pursued diplomatic relations with Communist countries that the US had severed ties with, such as Cuba and China after their respective revolutions. Canada argued that rather being lenient on Communism, it was pursuing a strategy of "constructive engagement" whereby it sought to influence Communism through

the course of its international relationships. Canada 's main Cold War contribution to international politics was made in the innovation and implementation of Peacekeeping, which was an attempt to dissolve conflicts and create conditions for peace. To defend North America against a possible enemy attack, Canada and the United States began to work very closely together in the 1950s. Nonetheless, opposition to the Vietnam War and Canada 's relationship with China and Cuba often had Canada in conflict with the West. Canada refused to join the Organization of American States, disliking the support and tolerance of the Cold War for dictators. Under Pearsons successor Pierre Trudeau, US-Canadian policies grew further apart. Trudeau removed nuclear weapons from Canadian soil, recognized as the People's Republic of China , established a personal friendship with Castro, and decreased the number of Canadian troops stationed at NATO bases in Europe . Also, Prime Minister Diefenbaker refused to allow U.S nuclear weapons in Canada s territory. 7. American social commentator David Reisman, in reviewing the social revolution of the late 1960s in North America, once said that the womens movement was possibly the most lasting legacy of theperiod of protests. Assess the validity of this interpretation from the Canadian perspective in the same time period. Pan-Canadian women's rights organizations worked for the creation of the Royal Commission on the Status of Women, which was established in 1967. In 1972, they organized the National Action Committee on the Status of Women (NAC) as an umbrella organization of established women's organizations throughout Canada. The women's liberation movement arose in Canada in the late 1960s with younger activists from other movements for peace, health and safety, native rights, and the new left. Largely independent of political parties, many were organized into small consciousnessraising groups; single-issue regional organizations working for access to abortion, birth control, and daycare; as well as student and socialist-feminist groups. They created alternative grassroots feminist organizationsrape crisis centers, shelters, women's centers, bookstores, counseling services, and feminist cultural and artistic alternativesand deliberately distinguished themselves from the women's rights movement. The federal government in 1967 set up the Royal Commission on the STATUS OF WOMEN to examine the situation, and in its 1970 report the commission made 167 recommendations for greater equality of women. The late 1960s in Canada, as throughout the Western world, saw the emergence of a new women's movement. This new feminism rejected all limits to the equality of women's rights and showed that equality in daily life cannot be obtained through simple legal, political or institutional modifications. Women were greatly influenced by books and articles by feminists such as Kate Millett, Germaine Greer, Gloria Steinem and Shulamith Firestone, and by publications such as Women Unite: An Anthology of the Women's Movement (1972) and Margaret Anderson's Mother Was Not a Person (1973). These writers held that society's major power relationship was one of domination and oppression of women by men. The existing body of social relationships, along with the very functioning of society, was analysed and criticized. In the late 1960s, discovering that "sisterhood is powerful," women from Vancouver to Halifax began forming groups. The Vancouver Women's Caucus was organized in 1968 and published The Pedestal from 1969 to 1973. The Montral Women's Liberation Movement was founded in 1969, the Front de libration des femmes du Qubec published a feminist manifesto in 1970, and the Centre des femmes edited the first French-language radical

feminist periodical, Qubcoises deboutte! (1971-75). At first, some were consciousnessraising groups, but others quickly turned to concrete action, providing abortion services, health centres, feminist magazines, militant theatre, day-care, shelters for battered women and rape crisis centres, and organizing for equal pay. By the end of the 1960s, Canadian society had begun to adjust to the rebirth of a major social movement, the women's movement. Public events, including lectures, entertainment in various forms and leafleting, are arranged to "raise consciousness" and disseminate information. Protest actions such as demonstrations, marches, vigils and petitions are organized. the federal and various provincial governments established advisory councils on the STATUS OF WOMEN. The federal advisory council, which played an important role in publicizing issues through its publications, was folded into the Status of Women Canada in 1996. The women's movement has been effective in organizing action on particular issues using a multitude of means and involving a coalition of groups and individuals. Issues generating mass efforts include, for example, the right to choice in obtaining a legal abortion, the entrenchment of sex equality in the CANADIAN CHARTER OF RIGHTS AND FREEDOMS in 1982, PORNOGRAPHY, the new reproductive and genetic technologies and threats to the ENVIRONMENT, CIVIL LIBERTIES and peace.